Tonight: Franz Ferdinand
by Franz Ferdinand

From sageamagoo TOP 100 COMMENTER 11/26/2012 23:36 | #55963 | TOP COMMENT Vote up your preferred comments and the comments with the most votes will be flagged.

I think this is Franz Ferdinand's best. I may be alone in that opinion, but that's okay: beauty is in the eye of the beholder. I think people who've fallen in love with the band's unpolished debut have every right to recoil from their change in sound; in fact, this and their debut are two very different albums, and I am about to judge this one on it's own terms.

On this album, catchy songs are abundant, but not the point. Alex Kapranos' knack for expressive vocals really shines on the first track, Ulysses. He sings as if his voice is an instrument - the dynamics just as important as the tune. It's what elevates it from a mere pop song into an expressive wonder, and it's production and polish add to the flavour, rather than detract from it. Turn It On and No You Girls are similarly bolstered from the production - this time benefitting from the atmosphere the songs set - an atmosphere that will carry the album. Send Him Away's time signature keeps this part of the album fresh, but ultimately is only good, and not great.

But then we run into Twilight Omens, a fantastic combination of dirty organ, powerful drums, and a vocal line that never commits itself to a single melody: it flows up and down, and always settles on a satisfying final note that completes the charm of the song. The cleanliness of the vocals makes a wonderful counterpoint to the main organ line.

Bite Hard starts gorgeous and ends awesome. What She Came For starts awesome and ends AMAZING with the heaviest Franz Ferdinand's ever been. What She Came For is especially unique in its melody of half-steps, and it's pulled off really, really well.

Live Alone and Can't Stop Feeling are the only truly forgettable songs off the album, and even Live Alone has a chorus that's good enough for one not to notice when listening to the album in one go (which is how any album should be played anyway). So what happens when the band realizes that they're losing their audience? A stroke of genius - write a curveball song that ends in an electronic symphony of bassy programmable cacophony that slowly takes over the drums - not only utterly fantastic, but very symbolic of today's world. And it's the first of three songs that make this album truly unique.

Dream Again is unlike any Franz song you've ever heard, for better or worse. Who knew a band like Franz Ferdinand could be so experimental? A tinkling of chimes, scattered handclaps, midi keyboards, and even a theremin solo all drenched in reverb make the song a treat to listen to with headphones. It slows the ending of the album to a pace which can be absorbed properly and leads nicely into it's total stylistic opposite - Katherine Kiss Me. The final song is nothing but a heartfelt acoustic guitar line with a piano solo at the end - not unlike the interludes present in You Could Have It So Much Better. It's moody, but somehow optimistic at the same time. As an ending, in my opinion at least, it's a wise choice: there's nothing more satisfying than reaching the end of an album and feeling a need to experience it all over again. The pacing is perfect - begin with a tune that starts as quiet as the ending of the album, but quickly becomes as loud and catchy as the middle. Then reach the end of the album and realize that the beginning follows perfectly afterwards. It's part of the reason Octavarium was so appealing to me.

So all in all, you have an album that's as appealing to an insightful listener as to a casual one. An album that has polish for good reason, but isn't afraid to get it's hands dirty if need be. An album that has a singer who's dynamics are astounding, and a creative masterpiece that should certainly be given a second look.

In case you wanted to know, my first Franz album was the debut, and I loved that album very much when this one came out. But I kept my mind open, and am very thankful for doing so.

Another fantastic techno album from this fabulous grunge band from the 1920s

Franz Ferdinand nowadays sound like a band who really had a signature sound and went with it. Most thought they were poised for going much further. This album marks the first where they didnt have a top 10 hit single in the U.K but i think thats more due to the changing landscape of music and its consumption in the late noughties.

They can surely write great hooks and it shows. This might be their most experimental record but that doesnt mean some kid a level left turn. Its just good old Franz with slightly different instrumentation and a somberer tone throughout.

All in all this makes for some of their most appealing deep cuts "Live Alone" should've been a single and the fact that they refused money from Burguer King to make "bite hard" their 2009 ad campaign theme song goes to show that Franz seemed pretty comfortable not being as comercially relevant as before.

Still the first idea for the album was to work with pop-giant producers Xenomania, which could have been awesome and very ambitious. However it seems they couldn't wake up at the right time for studio sessions lol (can relate)

Totally worth it.

From cestuneblague TOP 100 COMMENTER 08/01/2020 05:49 | #256553 | TOP COMMENT Vote up your preferred comments and the comments with the most votes will be flagged.

One of the worst albums of the 2000s, this has every sign of a band fulfilling a contract with some insipidly hamstrung, workmanlike yet completely incoherent arrangements stapled to the most cynically humdrum lyrics imaginable. Franz Ferdinand was always a more inspired and colorful band than particularly profound, but this is the exact opposite of all that, offering at best half-assed professionalism while every song just remains a chore to sit through. This is frozen dog shit passed off as cool and elegant pop, and it's just atrocious. (Edited)

For me its their best album.

I find very odd why is not higher in the top rank of album in 2009, or almost, any top-rank.

I feel like all the album it happend in a house party. Went you start with beers or cubas or alcoholic beverages , later some kind speed, and at the end with sun light and a mess of yourself, you go home trying to remember what just happend.